Cutthroat Island has it all. Good Pirates, bad pirates, eye patches and pirate clothes; hidden treasure and pirate boats with cannons; pirates with monkeys and pirates with guns; kings and princes, captains and crooks, swashbuckling, sword fighting and constant high adventure. Yes, Cutthroat Island has it all, it just doesn’t do anything with it.

In the midst of all the fighting and adventure, it’s easy to lose track of what’s going on and exactly why they’re all fighting in the first place. The basic plot that we are able to pick out is that Morgan Adams (Geena Davis), the daughter of a pirate, takes on the captainship of her father’s boat after he dies and goes after a hoard of treasure hidden on Cutthroat Island. She meets up with William Shaw (Matthew Modine), who can read the cryptic maps, and goes after the treasure with her crew. The primary obstacle in her way is her uncle Dawg (Frank Langella), who has an important piece of the map and is also going for the treasure with his own band of pirates.

Cutthroat Island is plagued with plot holes, unanswered questions and physical impossibilities in the action sequences – all of which it seems we’re supposed to take seriously. Even sillier, though, is the constantly campy dialogue, which fails whatever its intentions. If it’s intended to be farcical, it’s never amusing. And if we’re honestly supposed to take it seriously – well, then it’s the very thing that pirate farce picks fun of.